Dreams: Powerful, Valuable & Insightful

I woke up one day, opened my eyes and discovered I had no eyesight, attempted to talk and could not speak, tried to breathe through my nose and found I was not able to. Shortly after experiencing these new physical challenges I found I could not lift my legs or arms.

WHAT WOULD I DO, HOW WOULD I RECOVER, AND WHAT WOULD I LEARN:

Too weak to panic at the loss of some of my abilities, or care (at the time), you might think someone experiencing such life changing events would contemplate what would cause a drastic change in someone’s life, and what you might learn from such an experience.

POWER OF DREAMS:

I had just awakened from a three month coma, finding myself with these new obstacles to overcome. (In reality I did not awaken from my coma all at once. I opened my eyes very briefly one day, and very gradually stayed awake longer and longer each day.) During my coma I had many long dreams that seemed to last for days. These dreams were agonizing, uncomfortable, terrifying nightmares, in which I was aware of my critical and deteriorating medical condition. I believe these dreams helped prepare me to accept the fact that my life had changed forever. I had lost the ability, or option to live my life the way I had known since birth.   The way I had become so comfortable and accustomed to living my life was gone forever. These valuable dreams helped teach me to have the patience to endure my inevitable long hospital stay (7 months). They prepared me to commit my passion and energy to the needed rehabilitation and training I required to return to my professional career and my personal life with my new disability. These dreams also helped me discover my own unique and valuable abilities.
 
I had almost died many times in my dreams. I experienced relentless, torturous discomfort, pain and agonizing fear, and uncertainty, along with some visions of hope. I traveled many places in this temporary dream world, meeting with several people, seeking consultation and a remedy to my critical medical condition.

Relentless determination to live and the power of faith must have led me to meet a power much stronger than all during my dreams. This power, I believe, gave me the strength and courage to awaken from my coma, and join the “real” physical world, again. These dreams gave me a unique 3 month opportunity to explore my feelings of enduring torturous pain, discomfort and growing spiritually. This, I humbly believe helped to reinforce the fact that I might be able to return to the “real” physical world for a reason.  After such a gift of life, I was determined not to let anything stop me from overcoming my many new challenges to accomplish my goals in my personal and professional life.

My wife Kathy had the same vision and beliefs that I would not die. She believed this so strongly, that she refused to let the doctors remove me from life support, which would have ended my life prematurely, causing me to never reach my destiny.

Having the support and care from the many skilled doctors and nurses at the Catholic Hospital, along  with the many prayers from the Nuns, Priests and Chaplains at the hospital, and many prayer groups, and prayer circles around the country praying for my recovery,  aided in my physical and spiritual healing.

POSITIVE NEWS:

Although I have lost all my physical eyesight forever, I am happy to say I am able to speak again and breathe on my own through my nose and mouth. However, this all happened only after the life support and feeding tube was removed, my tracheotomy healed up, and I had to endure many hours of speech therapy. I am also happy to say, after many painful and exhausting hours of physical therapy and orientation and mobility training, I can not only move my arms and legs, I can even walk again with the aid of two canes.

I hope everyone has the ability to dream, and hopefully learn from your dreams. Never underestimate your ability to adapt and re-learn (everything, if needed), to trust and believe in yourself and your higher power. Please do not let anything, or anyone extinguish or squelch your dreams before they have the ability to come to life and flourish, like a hillside full of thriving wild flowers blooming in the spring sunshine.

We very much look forward to hearing how dreams (night or day) provided support, guidance or learning opportunities to help all of us.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton
Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton
Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

Comments

[Pat Fischer]

Bill,

I love what you wrote and I agree dreams are so important as that is needed to develop a picture in our mind. I like to think that if you can create a picture in your mind, you can then become part of that picture. Music in some ways allows us to dream which also helps create that picture. I believe the greatest book in the world is the bible and all the answers are in there. I love the following bible verse:

Matthew 21:22
"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

I think it takes a dream to create the picture. I also think we need to pray thanks for the blessings we receive every day, and to pray for what we believe. GOD is great and does answer our prayers and you do receive what you believe.

Blessings to you and your family,
Pat Fischer